Indonesia

• Population (2020): 273,523,621 (ranked 4th globally)
• GDP per capita (2020): USD 3869.59  (ranked 99th globally)
• Emissions (2021): 496.4 Mt (ranked 11th)
• Earth.Org Sustainability Index Ranking: 151st

Pledges & Targets

• Paris Agreement & NDC: Indonesia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), last updated in July 2021, targets the following:
  • In 2015, the Indonesian government announced to be slashing its emissions from 2020-2030 by 29% (unconditional) up to 41% (conditional) against the 2030 business as usual scenario, an increased unconditional commitment in comparison to the 2010 pledge of 26%
    
• Road to Net-Zero: A net-zero target date of 2060 has been under discussion by the Indonesian government.
• Clean Energy Goal:  Government Regulation No. 79/2014 on National Energy Policy, set out the ambition to transform, by 2025 and 2050, the primary energy supply mix with shares as follows:
  • Renewable energy to account for at least 23% of energy mix in 2025 and at least 31% in 2050; 
  • Oil to account for less than 25% in 2025 and less than 20% in 2050; 
  • Coal use to fall to at least 30% in 2025 and 25% in 2050; 
  • Natural gas use to fall to at least 22% in 2025 and 24% in 2050. 

State of Affairs

After updating its NDC in July 2021, the Indonesian government provided further information to demonstrate its commitment towards achieving the country’s carbon neutrality goal in 2060. 

In 2018, Indonesia’s greenhouse gas (GHG emission) was at 542 Mt Tons, which tripled from 1990 levels. In other words, Indonesia is responsible for 1.68% of global carbon emissions. The massive consumption of coal, oil and gas energy are predominantly responsible for such a high level of GHG emissions. According to the updated NDC, land use change (LUCF) accounts for 63% of Indonesia’s emissions and the combustion of fossil fuels is responsible for approximately 19%.

In current president Joko Widodo’s first term in office (2014-2019), the government announced a “nine priority agenda” framework to protect Indonesia’s indigenous communities, encourage rural and regional development, improve the quality of life and improve global competitiveness in terms of economic productivity. In Widodo’s second ongoing term, he announced a political framework to improve national development, livelihood and further protect the environment and resilience to natural disaster and climate change impacts. 

In terms of financial conditions to combat climate change, Indonesia has already spent a total of around USD$72 billion from 2007 to 2019 for climate change adaptation, mitigation and surrounding activities. Indonesia has further plans to achieve the implementation of mitigation and adaptation actions for the period of 2020-2030. Also, Indonesia has been receiving international financial support. In the period of 2015-2016, Indonesia received a total of USD$1.2 billion through bilateral and multilateral channels, such as international financial institutions and Global North countries.

As of 2015, Indonesia allocated approximately USD $20.4 billion to fossil fuel subsidies. In particular, these budgets for Ministries were increased by 23%, from USD $47 billion to $59 billion. The Minister of Agriculture received a double amount of budget in 2015 and the Minister of Transportation received 45% more than previous year. Also, this budget for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was increased over 11 fold, from USD $0.4 billion to $4.5 billion in the same year. The SOEs include: infrastructure and connectivity; food sovereignty; economic autonomy; maritime: and security and defence because they are major pillars of Indonesia’s economic structure. 

Climate Vulnerability & Readiness 

The ND-GAIN Country Index by the University of Notre Dame summarises a country’s vulnerability to climate change and other global challenges in combination with its readiness to improve resilience. The more vulnerable a country is, the lower its vulnerability score, while the more ready a country is to improve its resilience, the higher its readiness score will be. Indonesia’s scores are:

• Vulnerability Score: 0.446   (ranks  110th out of 192 countries) 
• Readiness Score: 0.382   (ranks 106th  out of 192 countries) 

Indonesia is severely under threat from sea-level rise. Jakarta, the capital with a population of 10.56 million, is currently sinking at an average rate of 1 to 15cm per year, depending on where in the city. In particular, the sinking rate is 1cm per year in the south, but can be as severe as 15cm in the west and 25cm in north Jakarta, where the natural ecosystem is wetter and closer to swamp conditions.

Indonesia’s vulnerability to sea-level rise is a consequence of unregulated human activity and land subsidence. Land subsidence is incurred by the excessive extraction of large volumes of groundwater. What’s more, Jakarta is built on soft and swampy ground, and the illicit and unregulated extraction of underground resources is pervasive. Naturally swampy terrain, high population density and human activity exacerbate the sinking of large urban centres like Jakarta, and yet the government has inadequate resources to regulate this phenomenon effectively.

Increased temperatures are also threatening Indonesia’s straggling resilience to climate change. As of October 2019, temperatures in Sulawesi, one of the four Greater Sunda Island, reached 38.8C, and satellite-based forecasts announced over 44C. The climate is expected to warm by around 0.2 to 0.3 degrees in each decade. The WWF report predicts that there will be a higher frequency of heatwaves and droughts in the southern parts of the country as well as more perilous rainfall in the future. What’s more, a study published in PNAS predicts that most of Indonesia will experience significantly warmer temperatures above 29C and much higher than average temperatures in most years, by this decade. As such, people who live in rural or undeveloped areas without easy access to air conditioning will be extremely vulnerable to the detrimental health effects of high temperatures. Heatwaves have also incurred economic losses in Indonesia of around US$28.1 billion in the previous two decades.

Environmental Policies by Sector 

Energy 

• Renewables made up 20.9% of Indonesia’s total energy share in 2018, per IRENA.
• Between 2013 and 2018, the share of renewable energy in Indonesia’s renewable energy supply decreased by 16.9%.
• In 2018, fossil fuels accounted for 78% of Indonesia’s energy production.  Renewable energy, such as bioenergy, accounts for 22%.

The Indonesian government is currently aiming to achieve at least 23% of the energy mix in 2025 and at least 31% in 2050. It has no further plan to establish any new coal plants as well. Also, the country is planning to convert all diesel power plants into renewable plants and gradually retire old plants. Indonesia is also establishing an additional 4.68 GW of solar power capacity by 2030. The government endeavours to fully transform their energy mix from fossil fuels to renewable energy by 2060. 

Indonesia has very high potential for rapid solar energy development because of the country’s geography. The Cirata floating solar farm in West Java is a massive ongoing solar energy project, expected to be established in 2022 with a total cost of USD $126 million. This solar farm will generate a total capacity of 145 MW and become the largest solar project in Indonesia. The estimation of wind power is around 9,500 MW in Indonesia yet the installed capacity is only 1.2MW only. However, coal is still essential for Indonesia due to a relatively low electricity cost in spite of a grand plan to phase out the use of coal by 2060. In short, Indonesia is still struggling to balance the elimination of use of fossil fuels and the adaptation of renewable energy.

Transportation 

• Air transport freight in Indonesia increased from 14 million tonnes in 1970 to 982 million tonnes in 2019. The annual growth of an annual rate is 11.79%.
• As of 2020, motor vehicle sales for Indonesia was 532,077 units. The average annual rate is 7.21%.
• As of 2020, passenger car sales for Indonesia was 388,925 units and the total car sales fluctuated in recent years. 
• As of 2020, Indonesia commercial vehicle sales was at a level of 143,152 units, down from 244,947 units previous year, this is a change of 41.56%. 

The transportation sector contributes 70-80% of air pollution in Indonesia. An odd-even policy aims to reduce traffic congestion in Jakarta’s road network by permitting vehicles with the last digits of even or odd vehicle registration numbers to operate on odd or even date. Although it is in effect, it doesn’t target motorcycles, even though they account for ¾ of all vehicles driven in Indonesia . In other words, this odd-even policy has very little impact on slashing transport-related emissions. As of 2018, the transport sector accounted for 28% of Indonesia’s total emissions and 94% of its energy consumption from petroleum fuel combustion.

Since private passenger vehicles are popular due to the growth of motorcycles and cars, there is room for the potential of electric vehicles to reduce a high dependency on oil imports and alleviate air pollution. As such, the Indonesian government has announced an official goal that electric vehicles will account for 20% of the total domestic vehicles manufactured, which is equivalent to 400,000 EV cars by 2025. Also, the government is aiming for electric motorbikes to make up 20% of domestic motorbike production in the same year. Since then, at least 15 domestic motorbike manufacturers are producing a capacity of up to 877,000 e-motorbikes annually. 

Biodiversity 

• 12.17% of Indonesia’s territorial space is protected, as are 3.06% of Indonesia’s marine areas.
• Per Yale’s Environmental Performance Index, 56.64% of Indonesia’s population is urbanised.
• Yale EPI ranked Indonesia 116th in the world in terms of ecosystem vitality, which measures how well countries preserve, protect, and enhance their ecosystems and the services they provide.
• According to the World Bank collection of development indicators, forests covered 49.72% of Indonesia’s land in 2018. In 2001, Indonesia had 93.8Mha of natural forest, extending over 50% of its land area. In 2020, it lost 270kha of natural forest, equivalent to 208Mt of CO2 emissions.
• Per Global Forest Watch, 36% of tree cover loss in Indonesia from 2002 to 2020 is due to deforestation. The top 4 regions are responsible for 52% of all tree cover loss in these 2 decades. The Riau province suffers the most tree cover loss at 3.9Mha compared to an average of 840 kha. Papua has the most tree cover at 29.7Mha compared to an average of 4.78Mha. 

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago, with over 17,500 islands spread across 790 million hectares with over 95,000km of coastlines and a land territory of around 200 million hectares. Indonesia is categorised as one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world, thus having 43 national parks, 239 nature reserves, 13 hunting parks, 22 grand forest parks and 103 nature tourism parks. 

However, 140 species of birds, 63 species of mammals and 21 species of reptiles are currently threatened by extinction due to habit degradation and fragmentation, landscape changes, overexploitation, pollution, climate change, alien species, forest and land fires as well as the economic and political crisis within the country. 

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets aims to create a 10-year plan with 20 major targets for the protection and conservation of natural systems. As this target expires in 2020, Indonesia has established several conservation areas, including biosphere reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, ecotourism parks, forest parks and hunting parks. The coverage of protected areas quadrupled from 7.628 million ha in 1981 to 27.968 million ha in 2007. Indonesia is also updating the Indonesia Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan to include policies for monitoring and evaluating implementation at both regional and national level.

At COP26 in 2021, the Environment Minister of Indonesia Siti Nurbaya Bakar criticised proceedings that were seemingly forcing Indonesia to attain zero deforestation by 2030, as part of the global deforestation pledge agreed upon by over 100 countries at the summit. Economic development remains Indonesia’s most important target. 

Wildlife 

• Per the global NGO Earth’s Endangered Creatures, Indonesia possesses 1567 endangered species, of which 395 are plant species and 1,172 are animal species. 
• Per the research group Animal Protection Index, Indonesia has enshrined into law legislation that recognises the sentience of animal species. 

The Indonesian government’s Husbandry and Animal Health Law defines animal welfare as “all matters relating to animal physical and mental conditions.” Legal infractions of animal welfare law includes catching and handling, placement and multiplication, care, transportation, slaughtering and killing, and requires “reasonable treatment and tender care”. What’s more, all forms of ill treatment are outlawed to safeguard animal rights or offenders are punished for animal cruelty in accordance to Article 303 of the Indonesian Penal Code in terms of “light maltreatment” of animals” and “serious harm, death or illness of over a week”. 

Pollution

• Per IQAir, in 2020 Indonesia averaged 40.7µg/m³ (micrograms of air pollutants per cubic metre of air), ranking 9th out of the 106 countries and territories where data was collected.
• Indonesia has eight times the PM2.5 concentration of the WHO exposure recommendation. This implies that Indonesian residents are living in a place with bad air quality. 100,000 premature deaths relate to PM2.5 in 2016. 
• In 2015, Indonesia had on average 0.7kg of waste per capita daily while the country generated around 64 million metric tons of waste annually. 

Indonesia is the world’s second biggest contributor to plastic waste in the ocean. Waste management is a problematic issue in Indonesia and would like to declare a national state of emergency for waste. Indonesia heavily relies on landfill as 69% of waste goes to landfill. The availability of these landfill sites is rapidly dwindling due to overpopulation. What’s more, only 1.9% of waste is recycled in Indonesia, which is below global averages.